Hard Drive Courage
Hard Drive Courage is part one of the fourth episode of Season Three (episode thirty), which aired June 7, 2002 preceding The Ride of the Valkyries. Plot Outline Eustace is very ill and Muriel has trouble finding a cure for him. She first tries her special gelatin, but Eustace spits it out and throws up when Muriel tells him there is vinegar in it. She then gets the idea to try Artichoke Syrup Soup, but is unable to find the recipe. Courage and Muriel go to the Computer for the recipe, but have to wait 43 hours for it to download. Courage leaves the room to go have cookies and milk while the recipe is downloading. Meanwhile, the Computer becomes infected by a virus. Muriel goes to check if Courage has found the recipe, but when she gets there, the computer instructs her to "push button 'X'." Complying, Muriel presses the "X" key, which causes her to be digitized and sucked into the computer. Just then, Courage walks in, and sees the entire ordeal, leaving him devastated. Courage uses the scanner to go after Muriel into the digital world and save her. He ends up in a large, reflective room, where he notices an exit where Muriel is. Courage approaches Muriel, but the Hard Drive Virus appears and takes her away. While searching for her, Courage is attacked by a flying iron mouth and a snake-like computer mouse. He eventually escapes into the room where Muriel is being held by the hard drive virus, whom Courage notices is very ill. The virus summons a ram that shatters Courage into bits and several small mechanical creatures to finish him off, but Courage reforms himself into a large mace and destroys them. The virus then summons Bill - the computer hard drive itself, which attacks Courage with the razors it has on its back. When Bill corners Courage, he shape-shifts into a soda and sprays the device with pop, incapacitating it. Muriel asks the Hard Drive Virus if he has tried Artichoke Syrup Soup, and he says he did, but it didn't work. Courage suggests Muriel's gelatin, which contains vinegar, the virus's favorite. Courage uses the telephone line to take the gelatin from the bedside table next to Eustace. The gelatin works and the virus can breathe and laugh again. With computer rid of the virus, Muriel and Courage make their return to the real world. Eustace also begins to make a recovery thanks to the Artichoke Syrup Soup, which he enjoys until Muriel mentions there is vinegar in it. Characters Main Characters: *Courage *Muriel Bagge *Eustace Bagge *Hard Drive Virus (only appearance) *The Computer Minor Characters: *Leeches (debut) Trivia *A 3D model of Courage appears in the episode. This is the first time the show ever used 3D animation heavily in an episode and it was animated by Pacific Data Images. **The second time the show would use 3D animation is in the 2014 special The Fog of Courage * Several things appeared on the Computer's screen when he was infected by the Hard Drive Virus. ** A game of Pong ** A picture of a hockey court ** A baseball bat and ball ** "6 X 4 = BOB" (when in reality it's 24) ** And a television color test screen. *One scene in this episode implies that Courage has a bookmark or folder linked to internet porn. He quickly tears the hotkey out of his keyboard. *The Hard Drive Virus looks like Mustafa al Bacterius from "Mission to the Sun," and both have the same voice actors in both English and Japanese. *In the Japanese dub, this episode's name is "デジタルで対決したる！" (Dijitaru de taiketsu shitaru!) which means "Digital Confrontation!" *The Hard Drive Virus's line "Why didn't ya just say so?" has become a popular Internet meme. *This episode is one of the rare few to have been written by a woman. Errors *When the computer is infected and asks Muriel to push button "X," the screen reads "JEST POOSH BUTTON 'X'" (misspelled over "Just push button 'X'.") Muriel pushed what would normally be the "CTRL" key to show a picture. Category:Episodes Category:2002 Category:Season 3